This introductory chapter provides some background into the events leading up to President Harry S. Truman's intent to develop a hydrogen bomb, otherwise known as the “Super.” The short interval between the surprise Soviet atomic test in late summer 1949 and the presidential decision of January 1950, coupled with the strictly limited cast of individuals who played a part in it, poses the question of why Truman acted as he did. There are few clear answers to be found in the vast body of Truman scholarship or in the president's memoirs, which pass lightly over the decision. Truman, wedded to the idea of U.S. nuclear superiority as a guarantor of peace, paid little regard to the phenomenal increase in the destructive power of the hydrogen bomb. He saw it as no more than a qualitative enhancement of what was already in the armory.
The Hydrogen Bomb
